Alas, it is no more, after being damaged by fighting between Al Shabab and OAU forces a few years ago, and then in 2013 demolished by order of the current government, with a promise of being “rebuilt” by Turkey

Here are some photos of inscriptions inside of the adjacent mosque (also damaged during the fighting), taken by Mary Harper before its demolition

Lambourn, E.(1999) ‘The decoration of the Fakhr al-Dīn mosque in Mogadishu and other pieces of Gujarati marble carving on the East African coast‘, Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 34: 1, 61 — 86 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/00672709909511472 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00672709909511472. The first paragraph, showb below, suggests that the marbles shown above may not longer be in place:

The following photos are included in the above paper

Is this four layered inscription above the arch the same as marble incriptions photographed by Revoil and shown above (but in the proper vertical order)?

Along the narrow streets of Harmarhouine amid the huts and miserable huts along them, we arrive at the mosque of Hussein Arbou . This edifice , without much importance , dominates a small cove almost square, closed by the nature in which the sea, which breaks with fury on the rocks, pours a veritable cataract of foaming waves , while iridescent by the rays of the sun . Some sections of blackened walls surrounding the mosque, based as it on an entablature of the cliff and peak ground in many places by the hand of man . A little further , the old men say , was a tower of similar construction to the Abdul Aziz tower , and high enough so that we could see it from Meurka ​​. This tower , no marks on the rock, however, it differs in the reef a sharpened screw which, through arched doorway , built strong regularly and a Moorish character quite remarkable staircase gives access to a cave formed by the upper entablature . No clue, no registration revealed the date of the ruins. The other side of the creek, a cut in the rock street is facing the door , and can still be seen , right and left , a few walls identical to those adjoining the mosque. This cove she was a small port of refuge intended to park the boat against the violence of the monsoon ? or was it used basin repair a flotilla of Moguedouchou ? It is difficult to say today , but there has certain is that the cave and its surroundings bear traces of human labor . I have natural claims to have found several times small pieces of gold , as for me, I have hardly discovered around these lands broken fragments of pottery and glass beads without much interest. South of the basin , which extends the space between the mosque of Hussein Arbou and that of Aoues al- Garni forms a small cove covered at high tide. The low tide leaves has discovered a kind of platform rocks mishap by algae , and there is generally less research by women for bathing or laundry. Holes that serve tubs or swimming pools seem to have been in all probability foundations of a dead city , once sitting on rocks. But since water and sand walks slowly to the conquest of the rocks, and it was difficult for me to really reconaitre if these ruins were the same age as the Arbor -Hussein stairs. Who can say how many thousands of years have passed since the first inhabitants of these beaches?

If you think you can improve this admittedly rough translation contact me and I will send the original French text

Here below is a later view of the area, shown in a map titled “Oceano Indiano – Somalia Italiana Ancoraggio di Mogadiscio. Dai rilievi Originali della Regia Nave – Staffetta,, 1911 e da Quelli Successivi Fino al 1934” [Indian Ocean – Italian Somalia Anchorage of Mogadishu. Original Surveys by the Royal Ship “Relay” 1911 Subsequent to Those Until 1934 “] The “small cove almost square” can be seen in the red circle. Around 1985 I remember seeing the eroded remains of a spiral staircase that had been cut down into the rock, giving access to the water line within the cove

And here is a Google Earth view of the same location, showing the mosque on the top right of the cove

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The map comes from ” The Earth and its Inhabitants: Africa (South and East Africa)”, authored by Elisee Reclus and published by the D. Appleton and Company. 1889. Pages 407-409

KISMAYU-BRAVA.-MERKA.

“Kismayu, or Kisimayau is the last anchorage on the Somali coast, going north­ eastwards in the direction of Cape Guardafui, to which the term port can be applied. But even this place is little used except as a harbour of refuge, so little developed is the movement of exchanges along this inhospitable seaboard. Nevertheless, Kismayu is the natural outlet of the vast basin of the Juba, which reaches the sea about 12 miles to the north-east. In 1869 this town did not yet exist, but in that year some Somali emigrants from the Upper Juba Valley, and especially from the neighbourhood of Bardera, or Bat Tir, the chief market of the interior, established themselves at this favourable point of the coast, and opened direct commercial relations with Zanzibar. Later some members of the Mijurtin tribe, the most energetic traders on the whole seaboard, also settled in the same place, the population of which had already risen to eight thousand six hundred in the year 1873. At that time the suzerainty of the Sultan of Zanzibar was represented in Kismayu by some Arab traders and a small Baluchi garrison. In 1870 a Marseilles commercial house had hoisted the French flag in this port, but after the battle of Sedan the Sultan of Zanzibar hastened to reassert his authority over the place.

Bardera is inhabited by Mohammedans, who if not actually Wahabites, are fully as fanatical as those troublesome sectaries. They neither smoke nor take snuff, and display an almost rabid zeal in their efforts to enforce their peculiar views on the surrounding Somali populations. Hence insurrections, massacres, migrations. of tribes, and disorders of all sorts. In the year 1845, the town of Bardera was utterly destroyed by the enraged inhabitants of the district, who slew all the men and sold the women and children into bondage. A few fugitives, however, contrived to break through the fiery circle closing round the doomed city, and going northwards to the Ganane country, founded a town on the left bank of the Webi, which has flourished, and is now a great centre of trade. Bardera also again rose from its ashes, and with it was revived the old spirit of religious intolerance. Here were massacred in 1865 the two travellers Link and Von der Decken The vessel with which the unfortunate explorers had navigated the river, and which the natives had succeeded in recovering from the rapids, was till recently used by them as a ferry-boat between the two banks of the Juba”

Text above and below the map, and on the back side of the map, reads as follows:

MAYET – BERBERA – BULHAR 412

Other havens or roadsteads follow in the direction of the west, where Mayet (Mehet) is the seaport of the Habr Ghar-Haji people. According to the local

MAYET – BERBERA 413

tradition, here died the great Sheikh Ishak) ancestor of all the Habror ” Grand­mother” tribes, which belong to the widespread Hashiya division of the Somali race. Formerly the Somali advanced in years came from all the surrounding regions and settled near the venerated shrine, in order after death to secure a last resting-place near the remains of the founder of their nation. All the houses and cabins of Mayet were at one time grouped round about the tomb of the saint; but they have since been displaced in the direction of the west, near the mouth of a little coast-stream. Towards the north-east is visible the volcanic islet of Jebel- Tiur, or ‘Bird Mountain,” which contains a deposit of guano, and to which the English have given the name of Burnt. Island, from the colour of its lavas. The island is annually visited by about forty Arab dhows, from the port of Makalla in Hadra­maut, returning laden with cargoes of this manure for their tobacco plantations.

West of Mayet follow the seaports of Heis, Ankor’, Kerem, all of which belong to the Habr Tol nation. Then, after rounding a headland, the seafarer comes in fuIl view of a deep inlet in the coast forming the important harbour of Berbera. This 3 the only thoroughly sheltered haven on the whole seaboard, and has consequently been a busy seaport from the remotest antiquity. The town still keeps the old lame of Barbaria formerly applied by the Greeks, not to any particular point, but

SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA 414

to all the coastlands skirting the south side of the Gulf of Aden. Yet notwith¬standing its obvious maritime advantages, this privileged seaport has at times been completely abandoned. Thus a war which broke out in the year 1870 between the surrounding Gadibursi and Dolbobant nations compelled all the inhabitants of Berbera temporarily to quit their homes. But under the protection of Great Britain, which has inherited all the rights of Egypt as the ruling power on this seaboard, Berbera has again become the centre of considerable commercial activity. It has now a lighthouse, piers, warehouses, and even an aqueduct, whose copious water, thermal at the fountain-head, is brought from a distance of about seven miles. Berbera is the successor of Bender Abbas, another town some ruins of which are still visible on the low-lying shores of the Tamar peninsula enclosing the road¬stead on the north and north-west. Lying 160 miles to the south of Aden, and nearly under the same meridian, Berbera shares with that town and with Zaila, another port belonging to England, the whole of the commercial movement in the western parts of the Gulf of Aden.

On the beach at Bullhar, about 45 miles farther west, lies the market-place where the Berbera traders meet the caravans coming from Harrar and from all the Somali and Galla Lands to ,the south and west of that place. During the busy season, from October to January, as many as 15,000 persons are attracted to this place. Then, after all the commodities have changed hands, the tents are struck, the long strings of camels laden with their purchases move off in all directions towards the interior, the Arab dhows set sail, and solitude once more prevails along the seaboard. The Somali prefer the Bulhar market to that of Berbera itself, because they find in the, neighborhood convenient pasturages for their numerous herds and Hocks, whereas round about Berbera nothing is offered except here and there a few trailing plants and shrubs. Bulhar has unfortunately no harbour, and its surf-beaten shores are too often strewn with wreckage. The explorers who have ventured to penetrate from this point into the inland plateaux report the existence of numerous burial-places.

The most frequented trade route running south• westwards in the direction of the city of Harrar has its seaward terminus at Bulhar. But Samawanak and Dungareta have been spoken or as more convenient starting-points for the future railway, which has already ‘been projected, and which must sooner or later run through the Gadibursi territory towards the great city of the Upper Webi basin, easternmost station and bulwark of the kingdom of Shoa. Accordingly England and France have recently put forward rival claims for the possession of this future gateway to the interior of the continent from this direction. The English mean¬time retain in their hands the disputed station, recognising in return the absolute sovereignty of France over the Gulf of Tajurah, which also gives access to the inland regions from the head of the Gulf of Aden.

Published in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, London 1849

The generous description of the Nugal valley on this map reminds me another place described by a friend Axmed I J…many years ago, a place where there were “valleys of milk, valleys of honey and valleys of good pasta” 🙂